Illinois: Federal Court Upholds Right to Keep and Bear Arms and Awards the NRA $125,000 in Attorneys Fees

On September 26, 2012 the United States District Court in the Northern District of Illinois awarded the National Rifle Association (NRA) $125,000 to reimburse it for attorneys fees spent winning a lawsuit against the City of Chicago over a Chicago firearm ordinance on behalf of NRA member Shawn Gowder. In striking down the law, the Court held that the ordinance is unconstitutionally void for vagueness and also violates the plaintiffs Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. A copy of the court filings in this case and the $125,000 check from the City of Chicago can be viewed here.

The NRAs motion for attorneys fees in the case of Gowder v. Chicago was granted following a successful NRA motion for summary judgment. The Gowder case challenged the constitutionality of a Chicago ordinance that banned people with certain non-violent misdemeanor convictions from possessing firearms in their homes for self-defense. Mr. Gowder had a misdemeanor conviction for "unlawful use of a weapon" (simply having a handgun on his person outside his own home). When Mr. Gowder wanted to possess a firearm in his home and sought a firearm permit (as is required by the Chicago ordinance), his application was denied. Even though his misdemeanor record did not prevent Mr. Gowder from obtaining a Firearm Owners Identification card, Mr. Gowder could not obtain the firearms permit necessary to possess a firearm in his own home because the law prohibited permits from being issued to anyone convicted of "an unlawful use of a weapon that is a firearm," even if it was just a misdemeanor conviction.

In its June ruling on the summary judgment motion, the Court held that the "Chicago Firearm Ordinance does not provide a person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, in that it does not define the term unlawful use of a weapon. It appears that the City of Chicago merely borrowed from an Illinois criminal statute the term unlawful use of a weapon, which sounds extremely serious on its face, but in reality can include simple unlawful possession."

Although the Court was not required to consider whether the ordinance violated the Second Amendment (because it already determined that the ordinance was unconstitutionally vague), the Court nonetheless considered the U.S. Supreme Court decisions of District of Columbia v.Heller (which declared that a ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment) and McDonald v. Chicago (which declared that the Second Amendment is fully applicable to the States), and held that the Chicago ordinance violated the Second Amendment as well.

According to the Court, the firearm ordinance did "not differentiate between those who have been convicted of a felony or a misdemeanor, or between those who have been convicted of a violent or non-violent crime, and thus the denial of a [firearm permit] does not find valid foothold in statutory history." The effect of the ordinance "is to forever strip certain persons residing in Chicago of their constitutional right to protect themselves in their own homes, including, for example, a person convicted forty years ago of simply possessing a firearm (and not unlawfully using it against another)."

After evaluating the ordinance under a text, history, and tradition analysis, as well as a under the more conventional tests of strict scrutiny and intermediate scrutiny, the Court held that the ordinance was unconstitutional under any legal standard of review.

This is another great win for the NRAs team of attorneys, fighting in courts across the country for our right to keep and bear arms.

Good to see, but possibly all for naught unless we stop the Small Arms Treaty. Setting up the infrastructure and getting the institutional safeguards in place to stop it will take enormous organizational focus by the NRA.

If, after that, you think that it takes at least 67 Senators to ratify a treaty, I'll bet you $1,000 to FreeRepublic.com that you are dead wrong. A treaty can be ratified with as few as 34 Senators. In fact, it may have been done in the past with considerably fewer.

Only to the degree to which he can twist it to his advantage. Given the standards of "senators present" for a filibuster, it might be possible to enact the supreme law of the land and invalidate a Constitutionally recognized pre-existing right with as few as three Senators present. If you want to understand how that was possible, and that it was predicted by Patrick Henry before the ink was dry, read this.

As Carry_Okie suggest, we should read the Constitution, but we should also attend to what it means. It requires the vote of 2/3 of the Senate to ratify a treaty, and thus the votes of more than 1/3 of the Senate can deny a treaty ratification. Hence, 34 (> 100/3) Senators can prevent ratification of a treaty. Yes, if our folks don’t show up for the vote and let the ‘Rats have a quorum, 2/3 of a quorum will suffice to ratify, but then 1/3 of the quorum would suffice to block — however on something of this import, I trust our side will force the ‘Rats to gather the full Senate or drop it.

(Knowing the text of the Constitution does not suffice — the Founders expected the citizenry to be moderately well educated, and that includes being able to do simple arithmetic and reason soundly about things like arithmetic and the text of the Constitution.)

28
posted on 11/22/2012 12:12:44 PM PST
by The_Reader_David
(And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know...)

First, I never took the bet. Second, my original post simply asked whether you were worried we couldn’t get 34 Senators to block ratification — that is the number sufficient to block it with all the Senators present — nowhere did I assert that 67 Senators were needed to ratify the treaty. In my later post pointing to the 2/3 majority requirement I noted that a smaller number would be needed to block in the case where a mere quorum was present.

30
posted on 11/22/2012 4:23:10 PM PST
by The_Reader_David
(And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know...)

I do, however, see why you think my assertion of needing a vote of 2/3 of the Senate was incorrect — I am so used to the norms of parliamentary procedure that I assume “present and voting when a quorum is present” as the normal meaning of all such assertions unless they are modified to the contrary. (I was an old parliamentary-style debater in college, and function as the de facto parliamentarian for every deliberative body I sit on at the university where I am employed.) Requirements that a majority of the entire membership (or some super-majority proportion of the entire membership) vote in favor of some measure are so unusual they are always spelled out explicitly as such in by-laws of organizations that make such requirements.

31
posted on 11/22/2012 4:30:29 PM PST
by The_Reader_David
(And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know...)

I am 68 years old and have been expecting what is happening for most of my life. I am surprised only that it did not arrive sooner, I used to try to warn people but no one wanted to hear it, they thought it couldn’t happen in America!
I am no psychic or super genius but I follow a simple principle, if I see cars heading south through South Carolina on I-95 I have no way of knowing what exit they may take but I can know one thing for certain and that is that IF they continue to follow the same road going in the same direction they absolutely must arrive in Florida at some point, it is a question of when, not if and the when is determined by the average speed of travel. The same principle applies to nations traveling the path of bigger and bigger government, if they do not change direction then HELL ON EARTH will be their destination. I could see this country heading the wrong way when I was still a teenager and most Americans seemed quite content to keep going in the same direction.

That’s right, and these small victories matter a lot. As far as the Arms treaty, if that is used against the God given rights of Americans, then the time for political bs is over. Time to start shooting at that point.I really do not worry much about the Arms treaty.If a treaty with a foreign entity is ever attempted to be used to violate our rights, then the 2nd amendment isn’t just at stake. It’s ALL of our rights, and I won’t live under that kind of tyranny.

33
posted on 11/23/2012 12:33:19 PM PST
by Quickgun
(I came here screaming and covered in someone else's blood. I can go out that way if I have to)

i read the treaty clause as no treaty can usurp the constitution... i will have to re read...

When you do reread the supremacy clause, take care with the commas; it may not say what we all want it to mean. You see, we already have treaties on the books for over 70 years whose terms so wildly exceed constitutionally enumerated powers that you have a problem believing what you do. Some were ratified under conditions that were absolutely shocking. Every one has stood the (bogus) test of "settled law."

In fact, some of the Founders took major objection to the way that it was worded, but the Federalists rammed it through anyway because we needed the money and these were the terms our lenders apparently demanded. For some background on that consider this.

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